


Pearly Whites

by benedictedcumberbatched



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benedictedcumberbatched/pseuds/benedictedcumberbatched
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Sherlolly Writing Challenge 2014 on Tumblr. Sherlock and Molly's oldest child has a loose tooth and is scared to lose it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pearly Whites

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I own nothing.

“Mummy!” The little voice came floating down the stairs of 221B a sense of urgency behind it. 

“Your mother is cooking, come down stairs, Abigail,” Sherlock called out from the sitting room, not getting up from his chair where he looked like he was contemplating all the world’s problems. Footsteps came down the stairs slowly, both feet distinctly hitting each step. Molly looks down at a tug on her shirt hem. 

“What is it, Abby?” she asks, checking the pot of pasta sauce one last time before lowering it to a simmer and stepping away. 

“Look!” Abigail Holmes exclaimed, opening her mouth wide and sticking her finger in. Molly crouched down and peered inside her daughter’s mouth. There, right on the bottom row, her left central incisor pressed against her finger, was wiggling precariously in her mouth. 

“I see that. It’s a loose tooth. It looks like you’ll be getting a visit from the tooth fairy soon,” she smiled, running her hand over her six year olds dark curly hair.

Abby’s eyes went wide as she looked from her mother to her father. “But…why is it loose?” she asked. 

Molly stood up, turned off the burner on the stove, took Abby’s hand and led her to the sitting room. 

“Your tooth is loose because that’s what happens when you get older,” Sherlock chimed in from his chair, opening his eyes to look at his daughter. She looked so much like him it scared him sometimes, though despite coldness in her eyes, there was always a bright cheerfulness, and her round face was so much like her mother’s. 

“But what happens to it?” she cried, her blue-green eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I don’t want to lose my tooth!”

Molly pulled her daughter onto her lap. “Why don’t you want to lose your tooth?” she asked, rubbing Abigail’s back calmly. Sherlock watched the two of them over the tips of his fingers the way he would consider a crime scene. He was grateful Molly was barely showing, but the morning sickness was something he would be glad to be rid of. 

“I don’t want a hole in my face. Charlotte doesn’t have a hole in her face!” she exclaimed, of the Watson’s daughter. 

Sherlock couldn’t help himself; he started laughing. Molly looked at him scathingly. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, truly, I am. But that is completely ridiculous!” he said, his voice fractured by suppressed laughter.

“Sherlock, out.” Molly said, looking toward their bedroom pointedly. 

“Molly, just let me explain to her.” Sherlock got to his feet and went to the bookshelf. He pulled out a thick tome and flipped through it quickly until his got to a picture of children’s and adult’s teeth. “Abby, come here,” he said, holding out his hand for her.

Abby slid off her mother’s lap, sniffing after her father’s sudden outburst of laughter. She hung onto the arm of his chair.

“Right, what do you see?” he asked her.

Abby stared at the book. “Teeth.”

“Good. Do you know why your mum and I have teeth?” he questioned.

“To eat with.”

“Right. But you know mummy and I were little like you once right? Well, we lost our teeth too. Do you see any holes in our faces?”

Molly smiled behind a hand covering her face. Leave it to Sherlock to bring an anatomy lesson into this. 

Abby shook her head.

“Exactly. Because the reason your tooth is loose, is because it’s making way for your adult teeth to come in. So you won’t have any holes in your face and that’s what Charlotte doesn’t have any holes in her face either, because her adult teeth have filled in the hole where her baby teeth were.”

Abby picked at the pages on the book before looking up at Sherlock. “But what about the tooth fairy?”

Sherlock looked up at Molly as if blaming her for this fiction planted in their daughter’s head. “What about it?” Molly asked, silencing her husband with one look before the whole belief in mythical creatures thing was squashed. 

“What if the tooth fairy takes me instead?” she exclaimed, sticking her finger back in her mouth and wiggling her loose tooth.

“Oh for gods sake!” Sherlock exclaimed, closing the book with a snap. 

“Sherlock!” Molly warned before turning her attention back to her daughter. “The tooth fairy doesn’t take children. The tooth fairy takes the teeth children lose. You put the tooth under your pillow before you go to bed and the tooth fairy will come during the night and leave a present in place of your tooth.”

“The tooth fairy also…” Sherlock began, exasperated at Molly’s persistence to fill their daughter’s head with inane and useless information.

“Right, Abby, why don’t you go get washed up before dinner?” Molly chimed in, getting up and gesturing for her daughter to go. As Abby hopped off, Molly rounded on Sherlock.

“Don’t ruin it for her. Yes, you find it stupid and childish, but children have to have some sort of an imagination. We can’t fill her with facts. Allow her to learn on her own,” she said quickly in a hushed tone. Molly rose up on tiptoe and pecked Sherlock on the lips. “Besides, we’ll have to continue the ruse when this one comes along,” she added, taking his hand and resting it on her slightly rounded stomach.

Sherlock groaned frustration before sighing and nodding to agree with her. He bent down to kiss her properly but a voice from the bathroom broke the moment. “Mummy, Daddy, look! My tooth came out!”


End file.
